1. The essays in Sections IV and VI in Joshua A. Fishman' s Readings in the
Sociology of Language, The Hague: Mounton, 1972, are the most useful that I have found,
but they, too, are focused largely on single languages.
2. Berry, "The Making of Alphabets," pp. 737-83 in Fishman Readings,
summarizes this point of view. On p. 738 note 6, Berry gives a list of articles advancing the notion
that writing is a visual system independent of the vocal-auditory process. My interest is less in the
theoretical than in the historical relation between writing and speech.
3. V. V. Nalimov's recent In the Labyrinths of Language: A Mathematician's
Journey, Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1981, is an interesting case in point. Mr. Nalimov appears to
equate "language" with writing, as when he discusses the "structure" of ds2=dx2+dy2+dz2-c2dt2,
p. 43.
4. Karl W. Deutsch, "The Trend of European Nationalism The Language Aspect, ', pp.
598-606 in Fishman, Readings. Philippe Wolff, Western Languages, A.D. 100-1500, trans. F. Partridge, London: Weidenfeld, 1971, p. 139, etc., deals far too generally with
the convergence of dialects in Europe. How much they have actually converged on the colloquial
level depends on one' s point of view.
5. William J. Entwistle, The Spanish Language, 2nd ed., London: Dickens and
Conner, 1962, p. 118.
6. Wolff, Western Languages, p. 38.
page 27
7. Erich Auerbach, Literary Language and Its Public in Latin Antiquity and in the
Middle Ages, (1958) trans. R. Manheim, New York: Pantheon, 1965, pp. 261-62.
8. M. T. Clanchey, From Memory to Written Record, 1066-1307, London:
Arnold, 1978, pp. 18ff.
9. Elliot R. Goodman, "World State and World Language," pp. 717-36 in Fishman
Readings.
10. Helmut Gneuss, "The Origin of Standard Old English and Aethelwold's School at
Winchester," I. 63-83, p. Clemoes, ed., Anglo-Saxon England, 1972.
11. Wolff, Western Languages, pp. 88, 118, attributes this phrase to von
Wartburg. On the linguistic activities of Charlemagne, see also John T. Waterman, A History
of the German Language, Seattle: U. of Washington Press, 1976, p. 76, etc.
12. Giacomo Devoto, The Languages of Italy (1974), trans. V. Louise Katainen,
Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1978, p. 210. For discussion of how the Reformation broke the
hold of Latin, see W. B. Lockwood, Informal History of the German Language,
Cambridge: Heffer, 1965, p. 130, etc.
13. M. L. Samuels, "Some Applications of Middle English Dialectology," English
Studies, 44 (1963), 81-94.
14. Waterman, History of German, pp. 146-47, shows how Luther' s
Bibeldeutsch spread along with the Reformation in Germany.
page 28
15. Ferdinand Brunot, Histoire de la Langue Franˆaise (12 vols., 1900-1910), Paris: Colin, 1966, II. 14.
16. Clanchey, Memory to Written Record, p. 226.
17. On the Placiti Cassinesi see Bruno Migliorini, The Italian Language,
abridged and recast by T. G. Griffith, London: Faber, 1966, p. 61. The nature of the Strassburg
Oaths is identical.
18. See Auerbach, Literary Language, pp. 119-21.
19. Clanchey, Memory to Written Record, pp. 23, 97, 219, has interesting things
to say about the tension between warriors and clerks in the Germanic Middle Ages. See also
Auerbach, Literary Language, pp. 281ff.
20. Goodman, "World State and World Language," p. 718, quotes Lenin to the effect
that trade and not government is the basis for unification of language. In the Middle Ages in
Europe, as in the Third World today, it was not easy to distinguish trade from government. The
examples of Germany and Italy vs. France, Spain, and England could be discussed from this point
of view.
21. Auerbach, Literary Language, p. 319.
22. Brunot, I. 326-29. The sketch that follows is heavily dependent on Brunot, vols. I-IV.
23. Btunot I. 361.
24. Btunot I. 362.
page 29
25. Wolff, Western Languages, pp. 146ff.; Brunot I. 367.
26. Brunot I. 370.
27. Brunet II. 21ff.; IV. 118.
28. Brunot II. 115. In this connection Brunot remarks (II. 32) that the influences of
official writing upon the development of French and style are not sufficiently recognized.
29. Brunot IV. 127-28.
30. Brunot IV. 96ff.
31. Alfred Ewert, The French Language, London: Faber, 1943, p. 18.
32. William J. Entwistle, Spanish Language, pp. 106ff.
33. Robert K. Spaulding, How Spanish Grew, Berkeley: U. of California Press,
1948, pp. 72ff. Wolff, Western Languages, p. 175.
34. William J. Entwistle, Spanish Language, pp. 152.
35. Wolff, Western Languages, pp. 178ff. Spaulding, How Spanish Grew,
p. 139; Entwistle, Spanish Language, pp. 107, 153, 170-73.
36. These topics are treated in detail by Entwistle, Spanish Language, passim;
Spaulding, pp. 63-70; Wolff, p. 213.
37. Entwistle, Spanish Language, pp. 247-48.
page 30
38. Entwistle, pp. 197ff.; Spaulding, p. 137.
39. John H. Fisher, "Chancery and the Emergence of Standard Written English in the
Fifteenth Century," Speculum 52 (1977), 870-99; "Chancery Standard and Modern
Written English," Journal of the Society of Archivists (1979), 136-44.
40. The earliest official documents are collected in An Anthology of Chancery
English, ed. J. H. Fisher, Malcolm Richardson, J.L. Fisher, Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1984.
41. See Norman Davis, "The Language of the Pastons," Proceedings of the British
Academy 40 (1955 for 1954), 119-44, esp. 130-31; Mary Relihan, "The Language of the
English Stonor Letters," unpublished dissertation, University of Tennessee, 1977.
42. See E. J. Dobson, "Early Modern Standard English," Transactions of the
Philological Society (1955), 25-54; "The second feature in which the standard language of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries differed from ours was in the much greater variety of
pronunciation which it permitted," p. 30; "The main period of orthographical influence on
pronunciation is in the eighteenth century and after," p. 34.
43. This movement in England awaits further study. It must be followed up in connection
with Thomas Sheridan, father of the playwright, and his school of elocution.
44. Waterman, History of the German Language, pp. 112-13; Wolff, Western
Languages, p. 172.
page 31
45. W. B. Lockwood, An Informal History of the German Language, Cambridge:
Heffer, 1965, p. 79.
46. Waterman, pp. ll2ff.; Lockwood, pp. 90ff.
47. Saxon leadership begins with Otto I, Duke of Saxony, who after 936 established
centralized authority in Germany for the first time since Charlemagne. In 962 he was crowned
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; see Wolff, Western Languages, p. 128.
48. Translated from Adolf Bach, Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, 8th ed.,
Heidelberg: Quelle and Meyer, 1965, p. 252.
49. Waterman, pp. 146-47.
50. Waterman, pp. 141-42.
51. Wilfred M. Voge, The Pronunciation of German in the Eighteenth Century,
Hamburg: Buske, 1978; Werner F. Leopold, "The Decline of German Dialects," Fishman,
Readings, pp. 340-63.
52. Theodor Siebs, Deutsche Bühenanssprache, Bonn: Ahn, 1922. This
handbook has gone through some 18 editions.
53. Wolff, Western Languages, p. 184-92.
54. Edgcumbe Staley, The Guilds of Florence, London: Methuen, 1906, Chap. II.
55. On Latin and Italian, Devoto, Languages of Italy, pp. 190-91; on Latin and
French, F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2 vols, Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1898, I. 82.
page 32
56. There is a general discussion of the nature and importance of the notarial contract at
the beginning of David Herlihy's Pisa in the Early Renaissance, New Haven: Yale U. Press,
1958, pp. 1-10ff. See also David Abulafia, The Two Italies: Economic Relations between the
Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes, Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press,
1977, pp. 8ff.
57. Lauro Martinez, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence, Princeton:
Princeton U. Press, 1968, p. 35; Benjamin Z. Kedar, "The Genoese Notaries of 1382," pp. 73-94
in The Medieval City, eds. H. A. Miskimin, David Herlihy, and A. L. Udovitch, New
Haven: Yale U. Press, 1977. Devoto, Languages of Italy, pp. 48ff.; Migliorini, Italian
Language, pp. 81-82.
58. Migliorini, p. 69.
59. Migliorini, pp. 136-139.
60. Glenn Olsen, "Italian Merchants and the Performance of Banking Functions in the
Early Thirteenth Century," pp. 43-64 in David Herlihy, R. S. Lopez, and V. Slessarev, eds.,
Economy, Society and Government in Medieval Italy: Studies in Honor of Robert L.
Reynolds, Kent: Kent State U. Press, 1969. Robert Lopez, "Stars and Spices: The Earliest
Italian Manual of Commercial Practice," pp. 35-42 in the same collection, discusses eight manuals
of merchant practice compiled in or near Florence between the late 13th and the 15th centuries.
The documents printed by A. Sciaffini, Testi Fiorentini del Dugento e dei premi del
Trecento, Florence: Sansoni, 1926, indicate the priority of Florence in the use of the
vernacular in business. Christian Bec, Les marchands
page 33
érivains: affaires et humanisme à Florence, 1375-1434, Paris:
Mouton, 1967, associates Florence's cultural influence with its economic superiority, see esp. pp.
24-25; see also Devoto, Languages of Italy, pp. 216ff.
61. Migliorini, pp. 286, 303.
62. Auerbach, Literary Language, p. 328.
63. Mark Sullivan, Our Times: The United States 1900-1925, New York:
Scribner's, 1930, III. 163ff.
